Bridge Musings
by Iyami-sama
Summary: Hoshino reflects on her feelings towards a certain pilot. Around Episode 20, 21. PG-13 for some suggestion.


Author's notes: I got bored on the train this morning. I'm sure this conversation in Ruri's head did take place at some point, beats me if it went exactly this way or not. I'm strongly against the Ruri/Akito pairing, but she does care for him greatly, and to grok her character you must grok that as well.

Okay, enough Heinlein, on with the one-shot.

Boilerplate: I don't own any of the characters involved, unless my name changed to Asamiya and I didn't know it.

/\/\/\/\/\/\

Ruri paused and looked up from her console for a moment. The theme of the ship should have been "let's see how many times we can leave the bridge under-staffed," but Ruri never minded. It was hard in a confined space like the Nadesico to find somplace other than your own quarters where you could be alone and think. Besides, Omoikane was often the only one she felt she could bring certain things to.

Ruri momentarily shook herself from her reverie to run through the status checks before her. She allowed her mind to wander again only after convincing herself that there was even less going on outside the ship than on the bridge. She had put off this particular debate in her head for a while now, but she decided to force herself to a conclusion. Almost absentmindedly, she wondered what he was doing right now. 

Omoikane caught the impulse from her hands against the console and misinterpreted her musing for a command, dutifully displaying the location of the pink Aesti's pilot, who most certainly was not in his Aesti. Her hands flew from the panel and squashed the window shut as blood poured into her cheeks.

"Omoikane, why is every other female crew member on this ship after Tenkawa-san?"

A window blinked before her.   
"Number of times that question has been asked: 576.  
Commonly asked question rank: 2"

A second window popped open.  
"The answer is always the same. Insufficienct Data."

Ruri sighed slightly. She was aware this kind of conversation was normally considered to be one for "woman to woman", but the only person she could talk to about it might have been Minato, and based upon her apparent relationship with Goto, Ruri didn't really want advice from her. Megumi was straight out; she'd just get defensive. The Kanchou wouldn't be any help, as bringing the matter to her would reduce the poor woman to tears. She didn't know Howmei well enough to bring it to her, either, and Erina and Fressange were straight out.

"So, just Omoikane left," Ruri said aloud. She was still surprised at herself for the force with which she cared for the pilot. She supposed it was his behavior over the whole "hime" thing that endeared him to her. What she'd read about princesses said that they always had to have a knight in shining armour, so it had by default thrown out three of the ship's pilots, and the fourth regular pilot disgusted her. That left Tenkawa, which should have been her first choice anyways. She had always liked or at least been amused by him. He never set out to be something he wasn't, albeit other forces conspired to shove into such.

He had certainly played the part of the knight while at Peaceland, fighting for her against a whole restaurant's cooking staff. Well, getting beat up for her against a whole restaurant's cooking staff. She still felt bad about his taking so much punishment on her behalf over what she had said, but he never complained about it and it seemed like he never mentioned it to anyone either. Thankfully, no one had asked her about any of the events of that trip.

Then immediately after that was the fiasco. She still couldn't believe that the Kanchou was so foolish as to think that Nergal _wasn't_ trying to replace her with another captain. Of course, if she hadn't withdrawn, she'd probably be wearing a different uniform right now. "Kanchou Hoshino," she murmered, then shook her head. That wasn't what she needed to think about.

Even Erina was after Akito, it seeemed, but was Hoshino Ruri? She could certainly say that she loved him, but was it the way that Kanchou and Megumi wanted him? She could not deny he was cute. She blushed again, thinking about Omoikane's misinterpreted command. Or had he misinterpreted it? For the hundredth time, it seemed, she shook her head again, feeling her silver locks brush against her neck. Her brain consistently told her heart she was crazy. Tenkawa-san was biologically old enough to be her father, and already had several women his own age chasing him. If it were a competition, she didn't think she could come from nowhere and win as she had in the fiasco.

Perhaps he was fated to become to her what Gekiganger was to him. Very real to oneself, but unatainable all the same, the beloved anime character which existed only on screen, paper, and the hearts of its fans. Akito would never ride in a Gekiganger, only an Aesti-- Ruri stopped herself, realizing that continuing the metaphor might have been a little unsettling, based on conversations between Megumi and Minato which she wanted to believe went right over her head.

But then, as she looked inside herself, she wasn't sure that she really wanted him that way. She reflected once again that this madhouse of a ship was the closest thing to a family she'd ever had. She was no longer some lab specimen here. Everyone saw her as a person, as a member of the crew, the family. No one made her feel like family more than Tenkawa-san and the Kanchou did. If she ever got to have a family to belong to, those two were the ones she wanted.

"Nii-san," she said, smiling as she leaned forward to place her hands on her console. Another sensor sweep, then perhaps she'd break out the controller. She still had several more ranks to go to get her character to the point where it would be easy to defeat all the other Kanjii in the game.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

That's all, folks. I just wanted to explore episodes 18-20 a little bit, since in 19 she quite obviously has the hots for him, but seems more like "the old Ruri" by from 20 to the end. Akito is obviously very special to her (as if that's not obvious from the last line of the movie), but apart from episode 19, and in particular her song in the episode, she seems to love him platonically as a very dear older brother.


End file.
